This May, YES! Magazine weighs in on today’s most controversial issue in showbiz: the Heart-Chiz vs. Cecile-Rey Ongpauco saga. In an in-depth four-hour interview with YES! Editor-in-Chief Jo Ann Maglipon, actress Heart Evangelista and Senator Chiz Escudero address a lot of the unanswered questions concerning the scandal they are currently involved in—like Heart’s money gone “missing,” how Chiz’s relationship was with Heart’s parents prior to the scandal, why Rey had a brawl with Heart’s driver (not Chiz’s driver as previously reported), what happened before the media tirade, and what drove Cecile to go to extreme lengths to separate her daughter from the senator.

The actress and the politician were the subjects of the recent media firestorm when Cecile Ongpauco went public with the supposed seven reasons why Heart’s senator boyfriend is deemed “unacceptable” to their family—listing Chiz’s alleged “personality problem,” alcoholism, and “opportunism” as its key points.

“I was hysterical,” Heart recalls her reaction when she found out that her mom and manager Cecile was going to have a presscon about her and her boyfriend, Senator Chiz Escudero. “What? Why? She’s my manager! She’s my mom! It’s a nightmare!” Chiz admits that they were both blindsided by this move. “Nothing, no indication whatsoever...”

Heart and Chiz have been generally reluctant to talk to the press at length about this issue. Chiz explains that had it been a political issue, he would not mince his words: “If it were Jinggoy [Estrada] hitting me or any other politician hitting me, I would hit straight back. I’m a straight shooter, more often than not. But since it’s them, kailangan kong manimbang. I cannot answer directly.” “Them,” of course, refers to Rey and Cecile Ongpauco, the parents of the girlfriend who could one day be his wife.

As the public may already know, the senator is not the first man the Ongpaucos have rejected. Heart says the parental rejection has happened before with Ian Dy, Jericho Rosales, and Daniel Matsunaga. All three come from different backgrounds, but all of them were deemed unsuitable for the Ongpaucos’ bunso.

Also in the YES! May 2013 issue: Julia Montes’s star-studded debutante ball, the Eat Bulaga! cast’s travel photos in London, and Rocco Nacino’s profile in the YES! Pogi Series. 

Be in the know on the latest showbiz updates and happenings when you grab a copy of YES! magazine, now available in newsstands, bookstores, and supermarkets nationwide for only P 100. A digital edition of YES! is also available for international subscribers. For subscription details, visit www.pep.ph. For more details about the Heart Evangelista-Chiz Escudero tell-all interview, click here.